One of the most common words you will hear often is the word “positioning”. If you don’t know what it means, I’ll suggest you Google it and study it in depth.
Let me tell you what positioning does for you: it helps people find you easily – your customers, clients, business partners and collaborators. It also places you far above people who also do the same business as you. Have you ever wondered why the same group of people are always in the spotlight while no one seems to know who you are, even though you might have more value to offer?
This is because these people have learned to position themselves in front of the people that need to see them. Remember, there is value and there is ‘perceived value’. You might have tons of value but if people do not ‘perceive’ your value, you might as well be preaching to an empty room.
There are very simple things you can do to position yourself in so that the people who need to see you, can see you. If you don’t know if you are well positioned, google yourself and see what comes up. If all you see are your social media handles, you’re not doing a very good job.
1. Have a website. It could be a corporate website, but I’ll advice you own a personal website too. Your personal brand is what drives your business. Even if it is a single landing page, have one. Look at the first picture below. My website is second only to my Amazon Author Profile on Google’s search engine. By the way, spy the over 9,000 search results for Edirin Edewor. When people hear about you and google you, the first thing they look for is usually your website.
2. Get featured on other people’s websites/blogs. One reason why I have so many hits on my name search when I literally just started my business, is because I (or at least my name does) appear on other people’s blogs. Either they have written about me, like the Panacea.ng website at the bottom of the first picture, or they copied my Facebook posts and put it on their websites. I used to complain about people “copying” my work but now I know better. Let them copy, it makes you look good.
3. Offer to guest write for blogs and magazines. One of my search results, which isn’t on the first page, is the article I wrote for the Businessday CEO Magazine. It’s a digital magazine and a lot of noise was made about it online. Of course my name is in it, so automatically, I get to reach more people as well.
4. Flesh out your bio on your social media handles, especially LinkedIn and Facebook. Also fill out your details on “Google My Business” (see the right side of the first screenshot). When someone visits your social media profiles, they should know what you do at a glance. See the second screenshot of my Facebook profile. It also contains links to my website, Twitter and Instagram. Also be careful of who you let tag you because other people’s stuff can mess up your profile. Change your privacy settings so you have to approve tags before they appear on your timeline.
5. Write and publish a book on platforms like Amazon. After publishing, be sure to create an Author Bio on Amazon’s author central, and also create a bio and “claim” your book or books on Goodreads. There, people who search for your book or even other book titles that relate you yours, will see your own too. Did you know that pictures of your book also appear on Google’s search results when you google yourself?
6. Be shameless about attending events and posting them online. If you’re invited to speak at an event, post the fliers and advert videos. My virtual summit fliers and the Imbube book festival fliers all appear in the images on Google. Look for people with online/YouTube shows and offer to be interviewed. Have your own YouTube Channel where you can save and post the personal videos you do on Facebook and Instagram.
There are many more ways to position yourself, you can get our Goal Setting Mastery Planner here
Welcome to April, happy new month.
